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One of the families in the article are the Guthridges of Carapook and Charam. It was the story of the patriarch of this family, Richard Charles Guthridge, that inspired me to hit the microfiche readers around 20 years ago and begin the search for my family. The Herald-Sun ran an article about Richard and his long-lived family. Nana cut it out as it mentioned the married names of the Guthridge girls with Hadden, Nana’s maiden name, one of them.

Of course, we thought we must be related to this great pioneer in some way. Well we weren’t. My Haddens were from Scotland and the Hadden boys, James and William, that married into the Guthridge family were from Ireland. Maybe the Irish Haddens could have been originally Scots, but as I would have to go back to the early 1800s, I don’t think I’m that desperate to find a distant link.

The article gives the total age of ten members of the Guthridge family as 768 years. It also mentions the Humphries family of Hamilton with an average age of 60.

There is no doubt that the Guthridge family, with all 10 siblings alive when the youngest was 68 ( Richard lived to 95), was a big effort, but is the Humphries family average remarkable?

When I look at my families, most of them have had siblings that died at a young age and as far we know, all the Humphries were alive in 1951, with the youngest 50.

When I averaged the ages of the Harman children that came to Australia, using their age in the year of brother James Harman’s death, aged 86, I get an average age of 75. Fantastic, but I cheated because Reuben died in 1883 and I didn’t count his age or the siblings that died before the family left England. The Harmans have, however, also had an article published about their longevity.

The Hadden family is a little more accurate. If I average the ages in the year the first sibling passed away, Margaret in 1927, I get an average age of 69. That’s really good. The ages were 80, 77, 74, 66, 63, 55. My gg grandfather William was the 80-year-old and he was still working at Mokanger Station at that time.

Have I sent you scurrying for the calculator? Let me know your best average age.